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Re: Queen excluders

I wish Hayes would have tested a third configuration, one with both an entrance above the QU and the standard lower entrance and not just a drone escape hole. Anyone ever try that?

There are lots of people who probably run their hives that way all the time, as an upper entrance in addition to a lower entrance is advocated to increase ventilation AND provide easier access to the supers. Maybe someone out there has experimented with all these different configurations to see which one produced the most honey, I'm thinking not likely. I speculate that testing that third configuration that you are talking about would not result in much change in honey production over the other ways.

Re: Queen excluders

WWW, up to this point, the only published study that I have seen on this is the Jerry Hayes study, and I can only assume that it was done as fairly and correct as possible to get results that can be looked at as being somewhat reliable.

Re: Queen excluders

jmgi,
The differences of opinion will probably never be resolved on this topic, I guess in the end a beekeeper must do what he or she thinks is best to attain their goals.

Brian,
I hope you didn't take my responses as being argumentative, that wasn't my aim in this conversation.
I will be running with excluders on my hives whether they be restrictive or not, this suits the goals I have for my bee yard.

Re: Queen excluders

WWW, you're so right about that, this is just one topic in a vast ocean of beekeeping topics that have and will have conflicting opinions, in the past, present and future. Debate on these subjects is good for everyone, beginner and experienced, we can all learn something from one another if we don't have a completely closed mind. Most times, the way we do things in beekeeping is born out of trial and error and experimentation on our own part, or listening to others and following their lead based on their results. There can be quite different outcomes depending on which method we choose to implement.

Re: Queen excluders

I wish Hayes would have tested a third configuration, one with both an entrance above the QU and the standard lower entrance and not just a drone escape hole. Anyone ever try that?

That is my standard configuration. Sometimes they'll be slow to use the upper entrance, so I will close off the bottom for a day or two to redirect traffic. Once they start using the top I'll open the bottom again. Most colonies will take both entrances quickly, but occasionally I'll find one that has no interest in the upper entrance.

Re: Queen excluders

Originally Posted by WWW

The differences of opinion will probably never be resolved on this topic, I guess in the end a beekeeper must do what he or she thinks is best to attain their goals.

Agreed. However, my issue with the "honey excluder" crowd is that they are often times very vocal about the evils of QE's. I'm also good with that IF they don't attempt to spread it around the globe as fact. To me, QE's are an extremely useful tool - one that saves me countless hours (and potential loss of queens) during harvests, with the beauty of not decreasing yields.

An additional benefit of QE's that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that they keep your comb free of cocoons, making it much less desirable to wax moths. I have honey super comb that is 12 years old with zero cocoons. This makes storage much easier and eliminates PDB usage completely.

Backyard hobbyists could very well take the approach that MB advocates and be just fine. For me its a matter of efficiency. For most hobbyists efficiency isn't as big of an issue. However, swarm management is still an issue QE or not.

Re: Queen excluders

...and dont forget about the almost total exclusion from extracting supers those things that SHB love (pollen and brood). We still follow as closely as possible the 4 day extracting rule but have had boxes of honey sitting in our hot room over a week without any signs of shb larvae.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Queen excluders

Originally Posted by AstroBee

To me, QE's are an extremely useful tool - one that saves me countless hours (and potential loss of queens) during harvests, with the beauty of not decreasing yields.

An additional benefit of QE's that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is that they keep your comb free of cocoons, making it much less desirable to wax moths. I have honey super comb that is 12 years old with zero cocoons. This makes storage much easier and eliminates PDB usage completely.

These are all good points and I use excluders for the very same reasons, thank you for bringing it up, this is something that experience teaches you and if a person is a new beekeeper and keeps their eyes and ears open they can pic up on this wisdom from those that have already gone down the road of trial and error.

Jim,
You make a good point about pollen, brood, SHB's in the extracting room. I don't have SHB's in my neck of the woods but I hear that they are in my county.

Re: Queen excluders

Originally Posted by WWW

Brian,
I hope you didn't take my responses as being argumentative, that wasn't my aim in this conversation.

Not at all Bill. I enjoyed the posts on this thread quit a bit, especially the basic rules. More detail on how to use it correctly doesn't hurt anyone even if you are not using it today. I might decide to use it tomorrow if the negatives were better understood. You never know.

Re: Queen excluders

Especially since I went to all the same size boxes I find the concept of the queen laying in a super odd. If the queen lays in it, it's not a super, it's a brood box. If the queen does not lay in it and it's full of honey, then it's a super... it's all semantics...

Re: Queen excluders

MB, it might be semantics for you, but for me I like to have boxes designated for brood and boxes for honey, and keep it that way. Once you get queens laying in boxes that are intended for honey, you get pollen storage in them, and you get cocoon buildup in the cells, which makes those combs harder to uncap if you use them for honey again in the future. The pollen and cocoons that you allow to happen in honey supers attract wax moths, not what I want in nice wax honey combs.

Re: Queen excluders

I would rather the bulk of the pollen be in the brood nest where it belongs and can be doing some good. Then there is the shb issue, remember shb are really attracted to pollen more than anything. Bringing pollen laden combs into the extracting room is asking for trouble. It dosent cause any real problems in an extracting and capping handling systems as long as there isnt too much of it. Dont worry, though, there is still plenty in the honey so lets not light that fuse again.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Queen excluders

Originally Posted by jim lyon

I would rather the bulk of the pollen be in the brood nest where it belongs and can be doing some good. Then there is the shb issue, remember shb are really attracted to pollen more than anything. Bringing pollen laden combs into the extracting room is asking for trouble. It dosent cause any real problems in an extracting and capping handling systems as long as there isnt too much of it. Dont worry, though, there is still plenty in the honey so lets not light that fuse again.

Thanks for mentioning the SHB too in addition to the wax moths. In my area I worry more about wax moth damage, we have some SHB but not nearly as bad as some.